End of Year Review: What Series Will Last Us Into the Next Year (Possibly NSFW)

A post tangentially related to the New Year deserves an equally tangential header

Since the year is coming to a close in seventeen hours Pacific Standard Time, I’ve decided to end it by taking a look and reviewing the shows that will make the merge into 2012. Not all of these are superb, in fact only one of them really is, but they’re all worth talking about since they will be accompanying the newly airing shows both in winter and spring. So don your party hats, prepare to pop your champagne, and ready yourselves for the sheer unbridled joy of reading this post. Or just do the last part, that’s the one that matters most to me. In order of how much I’ve enjoyed each series thus far…

Chihayafuru

Ending the year the way I started it: With class

Chihayafuru isn’t a fantastic show by any stretch of the imagination. It’s unbelievably corny and clichéd, with a slightly vestigial romantic triangle that seems to come standard issue with shoujo-esque titles nowadays… but just as I said last time, it’s simply a joy to watch. Chihaya’s almost manic energy and enthusiasm, coupled with the growing charm of her team, is endearing me more and more toward the series.

I’ll be perfectly honest, if Chihaya weren’t such a whirlwind of optimism, I likely wouldn’t have lasted this long in. If she weren’t able to carry it, the show would have easily fallen by the wayside, none of the elements really stacking up into a cohesive whole. It probably earns the title of cheesiest show of the year, and I can’t love it enough for what it sets out to do.

Mirai Nikki

Mirai Nikki is a series that veers between surprising brilliance and predictable ham-handedness seemingly with every other episode. The plot is lead paint consumingly, wall bangingly stupid, not really having much complexity beyond “There can be only one!” For the most part the characters are wildly inconsistent or just plain dull, being driven by the plot in the most inexplicable manner possible. It’s a textbook example of bad storytelling, and yet…

Well, it’s entertaining. Mirai Nikki is, without a doubt, one of the most pulse pounding, suspenseful, thrilling series of the year regardless of just how much brainpower it actually as. It helps that it very sparingly but deftly brings forth poignant moments for some side characters that deserve them, almost making it seem like it doesn’t want to see them go. It’s cheap manipulation, I know, but I can’t help but be suckered into it. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t actually work better than initially thought. There are at least a hundred reasons to loathe Mirai Nikki, but at the same time there are a hundred and one reasons to love it.

Hunter x Hunter

"You just mad 'cause yo ass is old"

I’ve heard people say a lot of crap about this adaptation of the unbelievably long running shounen manga, mostly to do with tone. But really, the only complaint that I can level against this series is the soundtrack’s hardly fitting most times. While it isn’t misused to the hilarious degree that Deadly Premonition’s music is, it still doesn’t come across as the best style for a show that mostly centers around life and death struggles. It’s simply a little too positive.

Again, I can level very little against this series. You could chalk it up to me not reading the manga and only checking out the first three episodes of the original anime adaptation, but I’ve found myself enjoying Hunter x Hunter more than many series this year. It’s hardly show of the year material, but sometimes all you need is a good, dependable shounen series to get you through the week. Thankfully, Hunter x Hunter is more than suitable for that role, its almost antiquated character archetypes blending well against the modern slew of moe and generic male protagonists.

Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing

This is where my praise starts to meld a bit more with criticism. For all the bombast and good storytelling, Last Exile continues the one weakness of not making me care about what happens to our main cast. When you put aside the fantastical setting and dogfights, there really is very little drama to separate this from other series. It has the rare problem of keeping me glued to my screen each episode, then making me forget what happened as soon as the credits roll. I come back each week not remembering what happens in the plot, having to constantly keep myself up to date with the goings on.

It’s not that it’s a complex web of political machinations or a show based entirely around military strategy, it’s that I don’t feel invested in all the action. I like it when I watch, but I don’t absorb any of it. Persona 4 has the exact same problem… just pointing that out since I’m watching that this season as well, and I can say pretty much the exact same thing about it.

Guilty Crown

And Guilty Crown is shit. Totally, unapologetically shit that takes every negative point that I’ve made above and somehow distills it into a sloth-paced science fiction affair with hardly an original bone in its body and one of the least likable generic male leads I think I’ve ever seen. Can’t wait for next week’s episode!

And with that, for the billionth time, I wish my readers a happy New Year. May the fairy of sobriety refrain from visiting you all for a few brief hours, if only to bring her twin, the hangover fairy, along for the ride. And above all, stay safe so you may continue to read my posts another day.

Poor little Guilty Crown….lots of hate but some lovers of GC out there somewhere! I have fun reviewing it just to make fun of it weekly with OC tagging along xDD and lolol poor OH MA SHOE!! Not a good main at all..

That was the best picture of Chihaya that I could find on pixiv. Or rather the first well done one I only noticed the shadow after I posted it, and by then I wasn’t going to correct it, hilarious implications be damned.